In the process of developing my thesis, I wanted to let go of the contemporary way of thinking about the relationship between architecture and sustainability, which lately tends to be through a lens of applied technology and a baseline understanding of building code that assumes the structure will be designed around an HVAC system that runs 24/7/365 and windows that will never open. I found it difficult to shed that habit, as the first sketches I produced showed massive amounts of insulation in the walls (which again, assumes that the interior air is mechanically conditioned). I thought about how long air conditioning has been a factor in culture today. Just one generation ago, young people were growing up in homes that didn't have air conditioning, or if they did, it was space-based, cooling whatever room happened to be occupied. Certainly, the generation before the previous did not live in a culture where air conditioning was an assumed part of building design. We're now spending more time huddled in our air conditioned homes, which is harmful to our health, distorting the way in which our bodies naturally acclimatize to changing weather. Air conditioning was once considered a luxury expense, and now is practically, or actually, illegal to be without. In addition to the relationship between architecture and air, I also thought about water. Where do we get our potable water from and how? Is the way we currently collect, filter, distribute, receive, use, and dispose of water the best practice for keeping our rivers and aquifers healthy and clean? What about the way we heat our buildings? Every apartment I've lived in the city of Richmond, VA has had at least one fireplace, and they are all bricked up. My current apartment has two chimneys, one in the living room and one in the bedroom, both of which have been long forgotten when the building was hooked up to gas heat. I look around the skyline of my neighborhood and see hundreds of unused chimneys. Is that progress? Is the technology we have now to heat homes more efficient, able to provide more comfort, or better for our environment that what we had used for staying warm in the winter for thousands of years? Lastly, I thought about the relationship between architecture and landscape, especially in regard to plants and animals with which we share our habitat. Not just the native plants and animals that happen to be around us, but also the plants and animals we choose to cultivate and raise. I also think architecture also has a place in the reconsideration of our culture's relationship with food, which is to say, our relationship with the earth, our source of food. I was adamant that the site I chose, and the way in which I created architecture on it, would have a positive impact on both the people who visit, and the local ecosystem. In order to stay focused on my concept of what sustainability is for the future of architecture, rather than what society tells me sustainability should be, I framed my argument around the four elements: air, water, fire and earth. As I dove into developing a program and designing structure and landscape, I used these elements as a framework, my own baseline for what good, comfortable, and environmentally responsible architecture should be. / Master of Architecture / How can I redefine conservation through site and architectural design? I’m going to test a new way to think about environmentally responsible design by designing an off-grid habitat and systems sensitive artists’ retreat in a place that not only has personal meaning to me, a popular getaway spot for Richmond, VA locals, but is currently under threat of 85,000 acres of groundwater-contaminating natural gas fracking in adjacent counties, a thousand acre nearby bald eagle habitat-destroying golf resort development, and irresponsible but difficult to change agricultural practices allowing rampant overgrowth of algae and bacteria severely undermining the health of the river’s ecosystem. The program I chose to investigate also has personal meaning to me, and is usually considered an unsustainable practice: ceramic art. I began learning ceramics my first semester of graduate school and quickly became hooked. However, I noticed many fossil fuel dependent energy and water-intensive practices that were considered quite normal at the studios I worked in at the time. However, the longer I was exposed to ceramics and the more studios I visited, I found more people that approached their making methodology through a conservational lens. They were able to teach me their methods and over time I learned how to properly reclaim clay and use limited and recycled water in the process of making pots and cleaning up the studio. There are still many more aspects of the art to study and perfect, some of which I begin to tackle in my thesis design. Merging the retreat nature of the site and its needs for an intervention to achieve a greater potential for human and environmental health, preserving and protecting the river for its beauty, health, retreat and recreational purposes, and my growing interest in the usually wasteful and environmentally irresponsible art form of ceramics-making launched a thesis level investigation into how to both live in a community that satisfies our basic needs as humans and make this type of art I’ve been drawn to recently in a responsible way.

In May 1993, 795 school district associates, students, and parents participated in a study to determine whether the implementation of TQM from 1990 to 1993 has made fundamental and significant changes and improvements in the district. In 1990-91, senior management of the district received 80+ hours of training and were certified as Quality Trainers by the Xerox Corporation and the Virginia Department of Education through a US Department of Education partnership grant. By September 1992, nearly 90% of all Rappahannock school district associates (employees) had received 30+ hours of training in quality management. The Xerox model of training includes components on defining quality, meeting needs of customers, interactive skills, working in teams, problem solving, and a quality improvement process. Over 60% of associates volunteered to serve on quality teams to address concerns targeted by customer surveys. In 1992-93, all associates served on required quality teams to improve instruction and support services. A couple of elementary school quality teams reduced numbers of students needing math remedial pullout services by 35% to 40%. The high school math team devised an improved process for team-teaching math and quality problem solving. Bus drivers, parents, teachers, administrators, and students served on a quality team to reduce 34% parent dissatisfaction with transportation services to 11%. The study found that since the 1990 introduction of TQM in the district: 89% of associates are using aspects of the quality training in their work with others; 72% of associates feel that administrators have increased their efforts to meet their needs; 66% of associates feel more empowered; 78% of students identify things that have improved; and 79% of parents feel that the schools have increased their efforts to meet their childrens’ needs. A "quality customer service in education" (QCSIE) scale was devised from the student survey items and responses. Seventy-eight percent of the district's students have positive QCSIE scores. The QCSIE scale can be used to help schools determine the level of student satisfaction with educational and support services. A similar scale found that 88% of students have a willingness to help produce, or coproduce their education. / Ph. D.

The relationships between watershed characteristics and stream use by spawning alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) and blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) in the Rappahannock River drainage were identified. Trends in fish use of 72 tributaries were determined by consulting eighty-eight people from the Rappahannock River area through a questionnaire. These streams were each given an overall rank based on answers to the questionnaire. The watershed characteristics of these streams were determined from topographic maps, land use data, and digital line graphs. Trends in fish use of streams were associated with stream size, and proportions of forest, agriculture, and wetlands. No negative relationships between urbanization or presence of point-source pollution and fish use of streams were found. Forest was positively associated with stream rank, and agriculture was negatively associated with stream rank. Results indicate that, of the watershed characteristics in the Rappahannock River drainage, forest and agriculture have the strongest associations with stream use by spawning river herring. Three sites in a tributary of the Rappahannock River were studied to characterize the spawning habitat of river herring. The sites were sampled and their habitat variables were measured throughout the 1992 river herring spawning season. Densities of river herring adults, eggs, and yolk-sac larvae were highest at the upstream site. Densities of post-yolk sac larvae did not differ significantly among the sites. The upstream site differed from the downstream sites in size, vegetation, hydrology, photic zone depth, pH, and vegetation. At times, pH levels in the upstream site were within the range of lethality reported for blueback herring larvae. Relationships between habitat variables and occurrence of river herring life stages in the upstream site were identified. Effects of tidal condition, time of day, light intensity, and temperature on peaks in densities of river herring life stages in the upstream site were determined by plotting these variables with life stage densities. Trends in water temperature were positively related to peaks in densities of river herring life stages. Logistic regression was used to determine if temperature, light intensity, dissolved oxygen, velocity, depth, and secchi disc transparency predicted occurrence of river herring life stages in the upstream site. Occurrence of alewife early egg stages was positively related to dissolved oxygen and velocity. Occurrences of blueback herring adults and early eggs were positively related to water temperature. / Master of Science

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2010. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 55 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55).

The increasing concentration of carbon monoxide and other gases in the earth’s atmosphere is expected to cause temperatures on earth to increase. This condition, known as the greenhouse effect, could cause the sea level to rise due to the partial melting of the polar icecaps and the thermal expansion of the oceans. Such a rise in the sea level would affect the tides, currents, and sediment and salinity distributions within estuaries. To see the nature of these effects, a parametric study was performed on the Rappahannock River in Virginia with a two-dimensional, laterally averaged, time-dependent numerical model which simulates the movement of water and suspended sediment in the estuary. The model is a systematic sequence of mathematical procedures derived from the mass-balance equation and the equation of motion. These equations are solved through an explicit finite difference scheme. The astronomical tide, the increased height of the sea level due to the greenhouse effect and the additional tidal height due to a storm surge form the boundary conditions at the mouth of the river. Freshwater streamflows constitute the boundary condition at the upstream end of the estuary. A frequency analysis is performed for both the freshwater streamflows and the tidal heights. A procedure is developed which allows one to calculate the return period for various combinations of streamflow and tidal height. The results from each run of the estuary model are reviewed to study the tidal hydraulics and the longitudinal and vertical distributions of the sediment and salinity with and without the sea level rise. / Master of Science / incomplete_metadata